


Follow My Lead

by EchoResonance



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Dancer AU, Gen, Lyrical Dance, M/M, One Shot, iwaoi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7020130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iwaizumi just wanted to free-run. He did not sign up to be anybody's impromptu dance partner that morning, least of all some stranger commandeering the courtyard he wanted to use. However attractive that stranger might be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow My Lead

“Take it easy on your run, we’ve still got a video to shoot later!” Matsu called.

Iwaizumi raised a hand in acknowledgement, already half-out the door of the gym. As he stepped out onto the sidewalk, he noted a pair of wiry-looking teenagers looking up at the sign on the front of the building curiously. One look at them was more than enough to tell Iwaizumi that they wouldn’t last a single day in a real free-running gym. He’d seen dozens of kids just like them come through because they saw a couple YouTube videos and thought they’d become magically great after watching some of the athletes up-close. They didn’t want to free-run so much as they wanted other people to know that they did it, which was not a good reason to go in. Still, before he took off, he clapped one of them on the shoulder.

“First lesson’s free,” he informed the starry-eyed kid, who jumped like a startled cat.

Iwaizumi left before either of them could reply, starting with a steady jog to his usual place for some warm-up exercises. The sidewalks were too crowded to try much on the way there without hurting himself or pedestrians, but the courtyard he liked to visit was usually sparsely populated. It had plenty of benches and garden walls—some low, some high, some whose height changed at random intervals—and a fountain in the middle, one he’d gotten in trouble for climbing on a couple of times before.

Upon reaching his destination, however he was disappointed to see a shockingly large congregation clustered as close to the fountain as it could get, effectively clogging a lot of free air space. He could work around them, but he didn’t think it worse the extra hassle. He did, however, want to know what they were all so interested in, as it wasn’t often to find a crowd _that_ impressive. Certainly not so early in the day; it was barely nine. Curious, Iwaizumi approached the crowd, and as he did music met his ears. It was a soft, lilting piano tune accompanied by light and airy strings.

 _A street musician?_ he wondered.

It wasn’t particularly uncommon for people to commandeer the courtyard and the wide sidewalks around it, but usually they were guitar players and singers, maybe the odd street dancer. Once there had been a bucket-drummer, which had been interesting if nothing else. Iwaizumi had never noticed a violinist before, and certainly not a pianist—though it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility for the piano to be a recording to accompany the string musician. Intrigued, Iwaizumi pressed closer, slipping past others as politely as he could until he broke out into the front line and gained a view of the scene. His breath left him.

It wasn’t a musician. The music was coming from a small speaker set against the wall of the fountain; plugged into it was a slim white smartphone. What the people had gathered around to watch was a dancer, and it wasn’t difficult to understand why. The dancer looked like a young man, but he moved like a breeze in smooth, lifting motions, following a path of least resistance that nobody else could see but he could sense. His movements were fluid and constant, and if he paused even then there was motion within him, humming with tension just beneath the still surface. The dance _was_ tension. It was patience, it was waiting for years for a letter from a loved one and fearing somewhere deep down that it was never coming.

The muscles of his bare torso stretched and tightened, pulled and contracted beneath sun-kissed skin that gleamed with a fine layer of sweat. His arms reached to the sky and his skin shuddered; he fell forward and his arms trembled to hold him off of the ground, but not for lack of strength. He wore loose pants tied at the waist with drawstring and cuffed tightly just below his knees; when he rose onto his toes as if fighting to reach the sky, his calves quivered and tightened. It was one’s heart pounding in their throat and ringing in their ears, the tremble of fingers before an overdue confrontation.

The dancer stood solely on the ball of one foot then and slowly, oh so slowly, lifted the other up, up behind him, until it was higher than his head, and Iwaizumi found his lips parted in a small ‘o’. The rest of the crowd gasped and some of the younger ones, mostly girls, swooned as the dancer lowered his foot again just as slowly, not so much falling as gliding down past his feet to kneel on one knee, his other leg stretched to the side. It was worshipful and quiet, kindness and sadness, a wistful longing for something just out of reach, it was frustration and fear and overwhelming need.

When the music trembled to its end, so too did the dance, and it was as if a switch had flipped in the performer because the grace and gentle passion that had emanated from him fell away. Replacing it was a bright, bouncing aura and a roguish grin, and just like that Iwaizumi straightened up out of his stupor, momentary awe fading away. The dancer waved at a couple of girls nearby, who sighed and giggled theatrically, and then his eyes flicked over and found Iwaizumi. Inexplicably, Iwaizumi felt nervous and suddenly hyper aware of his baggy sweatpants and sweat-stained t-shirt. The young man smiled cheerfully and stepped toward him; Iwaizumi noted when he came closer that the dancer was a few inches taller.

“I’ve seen you before,” he said, resting a hand casually on his waist.

“No,” Iwaizumi scoffed without thinking. Far from off-put, the stranger chuckled, brown eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I definitely have,” he insisted. “I’d recognize the local free runner anywhere. You come through here all the time for your workouts, don’t you?”

Iwaizumi blinked.                                                                                            

“Ah…I guess…” Iwaizumi admitted.

The dancer grinned and shook his head in amazement. His brunette hair, damp with sweat yet somehow still perfect in its disheveled state, flopped around with the motion, stray bits sticking to his forehead.

“I could never do that,” he said in admiration. “You’re incredible.”

“Hey, c’mon!” someone shouted in the crowd. “Quit flirting!”

The dancer jumped and looked around, smiling and scratching the back of his neck in chagrin. Iwaizumi ducked his head, cheeks turning pink at “flirting,” but the other young man didn’t seem particularly bothered.

“What’s that?” he said, tilting his head to the side.

“Let’s see some more dancing!” called someone else.

“Something else?” he echoed, looking around at the small sea of faces around him. “Well, what did you have in mind?”

“Something faster!”

“Maybe with a partner?”

“Gangnam style!”

The dancer laughed loudly.

“Well, I don’t know about _that_ ,” he said. “Psy can keep that one. But I can do faster. Do I have any volunteers for a partner?”

Immediately a dozen hands shot into the air, people squealing as if they thought they were communicating with a bat instead of a street performer. The man made a show of looking around at everyone, then glanced slyly at a bemused Iwaizumi, who was not prepared for the hand that was held out to him.

“Well?” he prompted. “May I have this dance?”

Iwaizumi stared at him for a good thirty seconds, hardly aware of the sighs of disappointment and murmurs of interest around him. Then he scowled.

“I don’t dance,” he said, and started to turn away.

The crowd seemed to close ranks around him, refusing to let him escape, and those long fingers suddenly closed around his wrist, tugging him back.

“Aw, come on!” the dancer cajoled. “I need a partner!”

“You’ve got plenty of volunteers,” Iwaizumi pointed out, trying to pull his arm free. “Why not pick one of them?”

“Hm?” the dancer said, lips curling mischievously. “Do you not think you can keep up?”

Iwaizumi stiffened and whipped around to glare at the stranger, though it seemed to have little to no effect. He continued to tug on Iwaizumi’s wrist, lightly enough to not be considered painful or threatening but hard enough to be considered a demand rather than a request.

“I just figured, an athlete like you should have no problem with something as physical as dancing,” the dancer sighed. “But I guess it might be a bit difficult for a typical free runner.”

He released Iwaizumi’s forearm then and made a grand, sweeping gesture toward the crowd, but Iwaizumi hesitated. If he left now, he’d be declining a very obvious challenge, and it wasn’t in his nature to step down once the gauntlet was thrown.

“And what are you gonna do for me if I dance with you?” he challenged.

Hardly thrown for a loop, the dancer smiled and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face for just a moment before it fell back into place. His teeth glared obnoxiously white against his suntanned skin.

“Whatever you want,” the stranger responded, voice smooth and low, almost a purr. A shiver ran down Iwaizumi’s spine, but he stood his ground and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

“You spend a day in the free-run gym,” he mandated. The dancer blinked.

“A whole day?” he said. “Just for one dance?”

“That’s the deal. Take it or leave it,” Iwaizumi said blandly.

“My, you’re an expensive first date,” the dancer said, tone impressed.

Their audience shared a collectively short laugh, and Iwaizumi’s ears burned, but the other man merely shrugged and held out a hand.

“Sounds good to me,” he said.

Eyebrow raised at the dancer’s easy acquiescence, Iwaizumi unfolded his arms so that he could shake his challenger’s hand. However, their fingers scarcely touched before the dancer had his in a vice-like grip and jerked him forward into the center of the dance circle.

“Wait here a sec and try to look pretty,” the man suggested, and he turned and knelt by his iPhone before Iwaizumi could intimidate him into using a different vocabulary.

 _I’m never running here again,_ Iwaizumi groaned inwardly, trying not to notice the way dozens of unknown eyes were trained on him. A moment later and the dancer was back at his side, smiling easily and taking Iwaizumi’s hands in his own, guiding him around so that they stood face-to-face.

“Just follow my lead,” the man whispered as the music started.

He pulled Iwaizumi in close, so close their chests brushed when they breathed, and Iwaizumi sucked in a sharp breath. He needed to relax—this couldn’t be _that_ hard, not if an apparent airhead like this stranger could pull it off. All he had to do was not fall on his face and it would be fine. The dancer had said to follow him, so follow him he would to the bright, sax-heavy tune.

A pressure against his left palm, paired with the feel of the dancer’s forearm lining up with his, guided Iwaizumi to step back with that foot. No sooner had he done so than he was being pulled back in, and then the movement was echoed with his right. Simple enough.

“When I push, you push,” the dancer said, and his words were accompanied with a level with their shoulders.

Iwaizumi returned the pressure and the dancer shifted so that they fell into a diagonal line, his chin at the man’s shoulder and the man’s chin at his own. There arms were aligned and out at their sides.

“When I pull, you pull.”

Said as the dancer moved back; Iwaizumi echoed his movement and they leaned away from each other, hands locked tightly as their feet kept moving to keep them upright. Someone in the crowd hooted encouragement and Iwaizumi grit his teeth in embarrassment, almost tripping when he tried to push back against his partner.

“Don’t mind them,” the dancer said, bringing them back to a neutral stance.

Iwaizumi noted that he was never still; whether they were simply standing or pushing/pulling, his hips were swinging with the beat, his shoulders rolling and his feet were always moving as if the ground beneath them was scalding hot.

“Easier said than done,” Iwaizumi grimaced, but he followed through an entire sequence without messing up.

“There you go,” the dancer encouraged. “Care to try it a little faster?”

He didn’t give Iwaizumi a chance to protest before he was pressing him back and pulling him in once again, and somehow Iwaizumi didn’t lose his footing despite his lack of preparation.

“Sometimes thinking about it makes it harder,” the dancer murmured when they were pressed chest-to-chest again. “Do you think about how to land when you’re doing parkour?”

“That’s different,” Iwaizumi protested.

He made to pull back, but one hand slipped free from the dancer’s and he stumbled, tripping over his own feet as he tried to catch himself with one hand. He braced himself to fall back on the pavement, torso twisted at an awkward angle, but the arm still at the mercy of the dancer twisted with their hands still linked, and he found an arm that wasn’t his own winding around his torso and pulling him back against a solid foundation. He found his footing in the next instance and that presence against his back vanished, the hand he still held jerking suddenly and pulling him around in a circle before returning him to that neutral stance. The crowd cheered.

“Not really,” the dancer said with a smirk, recapturing Iwaizumi’s free hand. “When you get down to it, if you’ve got quick reflexes, you can dance.”

“But there’s—” Iwaizumi started, cutting himself off as the dancer guided him through another set of simple steps, “—techniques and shit.”

“So?” the man challenged. “You don’t need them for _this_.”

He dropped Iwaizumi’s left hand intentionally this time, lifting the hands still linked above his head and spinning beneath them. He wouldn’t release Iwaizumi’s right hand, which forced him to spin beneath their hands as well or else royally fuck up both of their arms. Once he did, the crowd responded with claps and the dancer grinned, rejoining their hands to lean in close.

“Just listen,” he murmured. “And _react_.”

Iwaizumi had a feeling that if he didn’t at least try to do what the dancer was suggesting, he’d just make a bigger fool of himself. Besides, if his near-tumble was any indication, it seemed like the stranger was well-equipped to cover any mistakes he made in spectacular fashion. So, with a slow, deep breath, Iwaizumi listened to the music and just reacted.

It was like a switch had been flipped. He was more aware of himself in relation to the beat, took note of how their movements matched with the rise and fall of it, realized that the dancer wasn’t simply afraid of his feet taking root if he stood still but was moving them not just to the feel of the music but to keep himself light and ready to move. When the man flicked him out and pulled him back in this time, Iwaizumi went with it and found the music taking him exactly where he needed to be. Or maybe that was his partner’s guidance.

The dancer _felt_ like a dancer. When they pressed together his body felt tense but moved with perfect fluidity, a blend of strength and flexibility, and such astute control that he could probably control the emotion that his every movement invoked. Feeling the way his body moved with the music, Iwaizumi tried to emulate the man, knowing he had a similar physical ability and it was just the emotion applied to it that he lacked experience in. This close, it was easy for Iwaizumi to understand how the dancer had radiated such raw emotion through something as seemingly simple as the dance that Iwaizumi had had the fortune to watch.

His movements now were proud and light and dominant, commanding in the way he led Iwaizumi but whimsical in the way his body moved, separate and yet somehow still connected to his partner, like a leaf in a breeze. It was an apt description—the dancer moved as if the music was controlling him, and if what he said about reacting was true, then in a way it was.

When the song ended, it ended with Iwaizumi with his back against the stranger’s chest and the crowd cheering and screaming and in a few cases fainting. With the disappearance of the song came Iwaizumi’s senses and he stumbled away from the dancer, thoroughly embarrassed and red in the face.

“That was amazing!” the dancer praised, eyes sparkling. “You catch on fast!”

“You did all the work,” Iwaizumi said with a shake of his head

The man frowned at him.

“All I did was guide you in the right direction,” he responded, his hands settling on his hips. “What your body did after that was up to you, and let me say that it exceeded expectations.”

The heat in Iwaizumi’s cheeks deepened.

“Before you run off,” the dancer said, interrupting Iwaizumi’s scan for the quickest escape route. “I’d like your number. You know, so you can tell me when and where to go for your gym.”

Iwaizumi blinked.

“You…you’re actually going to?” he said numbly.

“Of course,” the man said with a shrug. “A deal’s a deal, after all. Besides, I’d like to see you again.”

Iwaizumi ignored that.

“Hand me your phone then,” Iwaizumi said, holding out his hand.

The man blinked, then jumped as if startled and turned toward his speaker, kneeling to unplug his cell. He nearly tripped over his shadow when he scrambled to straighten up and hand the phone to Iwaizumi, who accepted hesitantly, eyebrow raised at the man’s deviation from grace. Was he only dexterous if there was music playing?

Shaking away those irrelevant thoughts, Iwaizumi opened the contacts menu and added his information. He handed the phone back with his information still on the screen; the man looked down at the screen and grinned.

“Pleasure dancing with you, Iwa-chan,” he said cheerily.

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi said noncommittally.

He then turned and, ears burning from the smattering of applause the audience rained upon him, all but sprinted through the gap the crowd provided. It didn’t even occur to him to ask the dancer’s name, but when he returned to the gym and dug his phone out of his bag, he found that he had one new message from an unknown number. He paused in the act of changing and opened it up.

_Ya-hoo dance partner!_

_~O.T._


End file.
